


I Will Remember Red Skies

by Leonawriter



Category: Doctor Who, Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's
Genre: Gen, Regeneration, Time Lord Z-One
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-17
Updated: 2013-10-16
Packaged: 2017-12-29 15:30:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1007050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leonawriter/pseuds/Leonawriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Z-One had escaped the Time War only to trap himself in a doomed timeline, a loop of events created by his own hand.  His defeat at Yuusei's hands and Yuusei's promise to create that better future broke the twist in time, but in his mind he should never have survived - yet there he was, in the city somewhere around two hundred years later, regenerated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t felt it - every cell in his body, dying and decaying at an insanely accelerated pace, even for the almost _human_ body that he had gained for himself, one that replicated their growth patterns and aging to the point where no one had ever suspected that he himself was not, in fact, human.

Yuusei was long gone, back to his family, his friends, his time.  Zone wished him luck, and all the best… something he should have done long ago.

The Arc Cradle, meanwhile, was an unstable point in time, fluctuating in the winds of Chance and Change, Zone himself barely protected by his biology - changed as it was, even that had was limited - and his robotic shell.

Everything was giving up on him.  The cybernetics he’d implanted to give himself access to all of Fudo Yuusei’s thought patterns, his memories, his ideals - all were malfunctioning, being pushed out by the golden energy now surrounding him.  Soon, he’d only remember vaguely having the knowledge, a memory of memories once had.

Which was all right, really.  They weren’t his to have.  They never had been.

When he’d pushed Yuusei out of the way, he’d been resigned and adjusted to the idea of dying, death without the rebirth his kind were so known for.  He’d lived long enough, hadn’t he?

But now his body was fighting against him, regenerating despite his earlier decision.

Maybe he hadn’t been convicted enough in his choice.  Either way, the energy around him and the energy coming _from_ him were pushing against each other, pushing against _him_.

The pressure became intense, too much to bear, and it wasn’t long before he lost all sense, blacking out as he wondered whether h would ever wake up, and if he did, if his mind would be torn into pieces by the winds of Time, taken to all of the different corners of the universe, and if even one piece of him would, possibly, see ‘home’ again…

The Arc Cradle exploded, and Zone’s inert form was sent rocketing out like a man who had stepped onto a landmine, riding on the fireworks as he became one himself.

..

AN: Not the end, not a oneshot, but here, have a taster of the AU!  I kind of don’t entirely know where I’m going with it other than one or two ideas, either, but since people seemed interested… (First posted to Tumblr)


	2. Chapter 2

The first thing he realised, in fact, was that he was alive.

The second was that he hurt all over, or rather tingled all over with the sensation of regenerative energy still affecting his system even hours after the fact.

The third, was that he was in a city.  A familiar one, with voices speaking in Japanese, and words he remembered, the meanings coming to mind so easily.

He lifted himself off of the ground, and noticed dully that his clothes were a tight fit.  He’d have to fix that.  He found himself wobbling, legs strange, arms strange, head strange.

He’d have to find a mirror, at some point.  He wondered what he looked like.  Obviously taller, younger, healthier… but other than that, the people staring at him knew more than he did.

Zone - was that his name? He thought it was, although other names danced on the tip of his tongue, at the back of his mind, as though they were things he’d once known and had cast away.

"Yuusei?"

He turned, a feeling of familiarity urging him to wonder.  Did they mean him?

"Yeah, that’s the one.  You know, the short one?  The others are…"

Ah.  Not him, then.

Or maybe it was, once, but he’d lost that part, he thought.

He had a strange feeling like he’d lost a _lot_ of things.

He began to wander, getting the hang of his new legs, hands - hands he didn’t know, hadn’t worked with, had yet to use properly - reaching up to touch his hair and coming back down and to his sides to steady him when he realised that his balance hadn’t yet adjusted.

He leaned against a wall, and breathed.  Closed his eyes, and remembered gold light. 

The memory blurred, and he wondered whether it was coming from him, or a strange merge of bird and motorbike that was flying down from the atmosphere itself towards him.

He picked up a paper - not that there were many around - and glanced at the headlines, the date, the names being mentioned.

_Deja vu._

He’d seen this all before.  Somehow.  Not everything was right, but there was enough - enough that it was familiar.

_Or was it, rather, deja connu.  Already known._

He was only just regenerated, after all.  Somehow, he knew what that meant at least.  Unstable.  Prone to strange behaviour and possibly temporary mental disorder, should the regeneration have been interrupted somehow.

_Johnny Blazes To The Top Again!  What Will He Do Next?_

He knew that name.

He clung to the paper long enough for the man behind the stall to ask him if he was going to buy it, at which point he put it back, resigned, as he knew that he had no money.

_No money, none was needed at the end of the world._

The end of the world.  These people didn’t even know what that _meant_.

_2241\. 12. 07._

He remembered red skies, and giant stone cards, and silver trees and two suns and all of the strange things that these ordinary people could only dream of.

Something clicked.

_The year.  The YEAR!_

The last time he’d seen that year, it had been… oh, so long ago.  he remembered, vaguely, fighting, and only a handful of humans left.

He didn’t notice the single tear that ran down his face as he watched the billboard display ‘Johnny’ in his victory pose along with his team.

_Alive.  They’re alive.  It worked._

They were happy tears, though, and he was _smiling_.

_Thank you.  Thank you, everyone.  Thank you, Fudo Yuusei._


End file.
